


a workplace better left demolished

by serenfire



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: M/M, Oneshot, Snow, new year's fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-31
Updated: 2013-12-31
Packaged: 2018-01-06 21:51:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,592
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1111908
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/serenfire/pseuds/serenfire
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Winter comes to Night Vale. The snowmen are staging a passive protest against the decimation of carrots used as their noses, Carlos is snowed inside his lab (but is attacked and kidnapped by the time Cecil goes for a visit), and Hiram McDaniels has been let out of jail to relight everyone's (nonexistent) furnaces. Happy New Year's Eve! Now run.</p>
            </blockquote>





	a workplace better left demolished

**Author's Note:**

> @anyone I know irl: do not read thanks

“In other news, Night Vale, it looks as if snow has shrouded our small town by surprise! I see our local weather gods have not been doing their jobs regulating the holiday weather to that of a normal desert town, and instead have played poker with our conditions and voila! Flaky water falling from the sky. Now if only they could get it to rain in the summer—but I have been informed by the Secret Police we should encourage the local weather gods to do their job properly and not encourage chaos. It will take the press conference, which the local journalists of Night Vale are hosting, a few days to sort out the gambling weather gods, and advise us to sit tight and purchase snowblowers at your nearest sporting goods store immediately. With that, dear listeners, I bring you the weather.”

Cecil gently set the needle on the vinyl and unmuted the channel on his soundboard, and sat back, listening to the soft lilts of acoustics and piano flow over the recording booth. He looked outside his window, the blinds drawn. Sunlight streamed into the room in ribbons, obscured by the tumbling snowfall, which layered the ground in three feet of snow. Cecil’s booth was on the twelfth floor, and from his sitting position Cecil couldn’t see the point in which the snow collected in the street.

He pulled out his phone and texted Carlos. _How’s work going on account of the weather?_

Carlos responded within the minute. _I can’t leave because of the snow piled outside my door, so I can’t work._

 _Why not?_ Cecil raised an eyebrow.

_My work today includes going to check out the peaceful protesting snowmen on Scarlet Ave._

Cecil blinked. He hadn’t been informed of any reanimated snowmen. He opened the door to the hallway and hollered, “ _David?_ ”

Intern David peered his head into the hallway from his desk by the coffee maker.

“Is there any news about protesting snowmen I should be made aware of?” Cecil asked.

Intern David returned to his desk by the coffee maker and rifled through the stack of ever-growing newspapers. He ripped the front page off one, and sent it down the hallway to Cecil’s room via folding it into a paper airplane. “Sorry; I didn’t notice it earlier. The paper only just made it through customs.”

Cecil unfolded the airplane, frowning as he read the block letters _SNOWMEN AGAINST CARROTS_ and skimmed the article, swiveling his chair back to the desk as the needle lifted and the record player staticed irritably, having reached the end of the vinyl. Without looking, Cecil muted the channel on the soundboard and adjusted the mic back in front of him.

“I bring you a special report concerning the political aspect of things, my friends. It seems that within the last half hour, the snowmen created by Miss Lottie’s preschool class have started protesting on Scarlet Avenue against the use of carrots in anything besides their noses. Their leader, lovingly named Sharktooth by five-year-old Peter Flynn, gave an official statement explaining that each and every snowman is intimately connected to their noses and the noses of every other snowman, and can sense when unused noses—or the other carrots—are decimated, eaten, boiled, or die in any way. Therefore, they are blocking all entrances and exits to the Sunfield Grocery on Scarlet Avenue, _including_ the helicopter landing pad on the roof, in hopes of bringing freedom to their fellow noses all around the world. Well, Sharktooth and company, you are going to have to wait a long time for carrot rights to be passed in every country on Earth. And Carlos— _lovely Carlos_ —was planning on investigating, possibly experimenting on, the reanimated snowmen. However, he is snowed in his laboratory, without anything to dig him out, so he is unable to work today. I can’t see him from my perch, dear listeners—” Cecil grabbed his mic in one hand and propelled his chair as close as he could to the window without the mic cord breaking, and looked out over the surrounding low-lying buildings. “I mean, he is in one of the surrounding buildings, but from the twelfth floor, I can’t see his _exact_ location.”

Before Cecil had finished his sentence, a flare shot up from one of the buildings, sparking out at Cecil’s height with a pop.

“I don’t know if you could hear that, listeners, but a flare has just been released from a surrounding building. If a bored government agent listening in on the thoughts and conversations around there could help me discover the source of it, that would be very helpful.”

Cecil’s phone beeped, and he swiped at it to access the text.

Carlos’s number shone up at him. _It was me ;)_

He grinned down at his phone. “Well, listeners, it appears the sender was Carlos—”

A bird flew onto Cecil’s window, pooing the world _Carlos_ across it.

Cecil huffed out a laugh. “And _that_ would be the random government agent, helping a fellow citizen out. Thank you, random government agent!”

He texted Carlos back quickly. _Is there a reason to send me a flare? It must have startled all the rhinos hanging out on my windowsill._

 _It’s because I’m listening to you_ , Carlos sent back, and Cecil smiled.

“It seems that though beautiful Carlos cannot work today, he is listening to my radio show. Oh, I am _so_ happy! Hello, Carlos. Do you feel cold on this chilly winter morning? It’s New Year’s Eve, after all. You are used to snow, though. Have you opened a window, then, if you like the snow? Are the flakes tangling in between your perfect strands of hair? I bet you look _picturesque_ —”

Cecil’s phone beeped again, and he glanced down at it. Carlos’s number flashed at him. _brb sorry_ it read.

Cecil frowned. Carlos didn’t text like that, not even if he was in a hurry. Had something happened to him? _Everything is fine,_ he told himself. _It’s New Year’s Eve. We all have temporary immunity from death to celebrate the holidays with our pet mice today and tomorrow—he’s fine. Don’t worry, he’s fine._

“Well, Night Vale,” Cecil took a calming breath, “stay tuned for the _Bee Buzzing_ soundtrack, and I’ll be back to you with a warm cup of hot chocolate and the comics section of today’s e-newsletter _The Scorpion_ ’s holiday special. Why did the scorpion cross the road? To slay Santa, of course.”

Cecil flipped the switches on the soundboard, popping the _Bee Buzzing_ soundtrack from it’s case and setting it on the record player. He set the needle on it, and listened to the opening melodies of flies being swatted, before moving up and out of his chair—grabbing his jacket—down the hallway, grabbing a shovel, down the stairs in a frenzy, and out the front door of the _Night Vale Community Radio Station_. He swung onto his bike and started cycling through the melted slush in the middle of the road to Carlos’s laboratory.

Everything _had to_ be fine, but just in case, Cecil kept peddling.

***

Cecil arrived at Carlos’s building to see the snow already plowed away and the door gone, claw marks marking the hinges. Cecil swallowed, and left his bike on its side, bounding into the apartment building. The line of chaos—muddy snow footprints on the ground, claws grazing the side of the stairwell—continued into the door of Carlos’s laboratory. Cecil stumbled into the wreckage of the room, looking around at the toppled desks, smashed flasks, unplugged burners, clawed paper, broken clocks. Carlos’s phone lay on the ground, still on.

Cecil picked it up. The screen was still on the text he had sent Cecil, and there was blood smeared on the cover.

Cecil touched it, and licked the blood. Spat it out. _Dragon_ _blood_.

He turned the phone off and laid it back down in its original position, clenching and unclenching his fists. What was a dragon doing in Carlos’s laboratory?

_And why had everything been destroyed?_

_The snowmen_ , his mind whispered to him, as the inky purple threatened to envelop his sight completely. _Start with the snowmen._

Scarlet Avenue. He had to get to Scarlet Avenue.

Cecil spun on his heels and raced out to his bike.

***

He drew up to a halt in front of Scarlet Ave., as the entire street was covered in snowmen lounging around, arms crossed, faintly cross looks on their rounded faces. In front of the Sunfield Grocery, the snowman Cecil assumed was Sharktooth—taller than the others and holding a loudspeaker in his twig hands—screamed obscenities in a squeaky, prepubescent voice at those who dared to chop up carrots inside. His henchmen piled around the entrance, melding into piles three feet thick and seven feet tall of fresh snow, with their beady eyes and arms and carrots stuffed somewhere inside. There was a similar pile on the roof, of _snow_ and limbs in between.

There was also a dragon arriving on the scene, from the opposite way. Cecil froze, as he recognized its faces from numerous newspaper reports and telepathic updates. It had never been covered in a fresh layer of snowmen guts, as the ones at the edge were throwing themselves at it to stop its advance.

_Hiram McDaniels._

And, in his/their claws (the City Council had not yet voted on whether beings with separate brains were considered more than one being, one for each brain), was clutched an unconscious Carlos.

“Hey!” Cecil screamed, running towards Hiram and into the shoulder-to-shoulder snowmen, waving his arms around before his rationality caught up to his instincts. Hiram’s green head spotted the heavily-tattooed, purple-clad radio show host without much trouble in the sea otherwise devoid of color, and raised an eyebrow. “ _Give me Carlos back!_ ”

Hiram glanced at the unconscious Carlos in his claws, a sheen of dried blood on his forehead which Cecil could spot as he pushed his way closer, and snorted. “I don’t think so,” he began. “I need to eat in order to do my job, after all.”

“You’re in _prison_!” Cecil screamed. “Go back to prison! Give me back my Carlos!”

“I’m afraid he was in my way when I tried to lovingly light up his furnace,” the purple head responded. “I had to salvage _something_ out of the situation, especially after he stabbed me with a piece of his window.”

“Light up his furnace—are you out of your mind? _You’re running for mayor_ ,” Cecil blinked. “You can’t break out of jail, you can’t _eat_ people—sit down, Hiram. I’m getting the Secret Police—oh.”

The Secret Police had tapped Cecil on the shoulder, and Cecil turned around, watching the subtle meld of snowmen flesh into black trench coats, sunglasses, slicked hair and hands tucked in pockets concealing weapons until there stood an army of the Secret Police.

_So that’s how they get around._

_Where did the snowmen go?_

The Secret Police officers filed off the roof of Sunfield Grocery in a straight line directly off the side.

The police officer that had tapped Cecil cleared hir throat. “You may step aside,” ze motioned gracefully, “as we will deal with the situation now.”

“Please,” Cecil grabbed hir shoulders as ze passed him, “please get Carlos. It’s _Hiram McDaniels_ ; and what does he even mean by lighting up the furnaces? Night Vale doesn’t have furnaces.”

“Hiram McDaniels was released earlier to bring warmth and fire back to the cold, hard hearths of Night Vale homes. Those who opposed him, he mauled and/or ate. Your boyfriend seems to be the only survivor.”

“Because he _stabbed me with a piece of glass_!” Hiram complained. “If you get it out of my chest, I’ll give you back your foreign scientist.”

“Deal,” Cecil said immediately, calming the irregular beat of his heart that had started climbing when Hiram McDaniels appeared and grew exponentially at the mention of _boyfriend_ by the police officer. He pushed past the annoyed officer, through the remainder of the motionless shadow-cloaked officers, and to the foot of the great five-headed dragon that collectively was Hiram McDaniels. “Where is the glass?”

The dragon bent down awkwardly until he was lying on his chest, a shiny piece of glass no longer than Cecil’s finger, was at Cecil’s shoulder level. Dried blood stained the surrounding area, and claw marks surrounded it from previous attempts at getting it out.

Cecil reached out and grabbed the slippery glass. Hiram’s pink head hissed. _I wonder how many homes are on fire because of McDaniel’s visits,_ Cecil thought. The entire mess was probably an oversight in the accounting department of the City Council, because _everyone_ knew Night Vale didn’t have furnaces.

Cecil swallowed, and pulled on the glass. _The City Council will deal with everything,_ he thought. _People can’t die today. Everything will be fine._

Cecil then wondered how exactly the people Hiram McDaniels had eaten were still alive, and then pointedly _didn’t_ think about it after examining the options. (Season 4 of Torchwood was a prime example.)

He pulled the entire piece of glass out of McDaniels’ chest, or as much hadn’t broken off inside, and it was a foot deep, covered in slime and blood.

Cecil waved the glass in front of Hiram’s green face, and then placed it very gently on a pile of non-reanimated snow. He held out his hands. “Carlos,” he demanded.

Hiram McDaniels tossed Carlos at Cecil, and Cecil collapsed on the ground, Carlos on top of him.

Carlos jolted conscious, looking around blindly and, spotting Cecil, reached out for him. His eyes held a filmy texture to them, but he seemed to recognize Cecil, placing a hand on his cheek and looking deep into his eyes, and then jerking about, to take in the rest of the scene.

The Secret Police had surrounded Hiram McDaniels from all sides, and his yellow face snorted flame in annoyance but otherwise did not protest the arrest.

“Happy New Year’s Eve,” Carlos smiled at him.

Cecil laughed, reaching out and touching the gash on Carlos’s forehead. “We’ll have to get that checked out at the hospital,” he said.

“I have a first aid kit at my lab,” Carlos smiled.

“Hiram McDaniels demolished your laboratory,” Cecil said. Carlos looked a bit put out at that prospect. A New Year. A new laboratory, new experiments, new resolutions, new relationships.

Cecil threaded his fingers through Carlos’s fingers, and Carlos looked back at him, surprised, but flicked a hesitant grin over his face anyways.

Cecil laughed out. “The _Bee Buzzing_ soundtrack has to be done by now, and the record player is staticing annoyingly over the entire radio, waiting for me to get back and finish my broadcast. I think I have enough material for another half hour.”

“It’s just a fire-breathing dragon,” Carlos waved his hand mock-dismissively, “how would you _ever_ think that?”

Cecil patted Carlos on the back. “I have to get back to my listeners,” he said, standing up and pulling Carlos to his feet as well.

_Wait. You can’t just leave him. He’s your boyfriend, and he’s hurt._

Cecil sighed. _Relationships_. “Do you want to come as well?” he asked.

Carlos nodded. “I think I would like that, yes,” he said, and threaded his fingers back between Cecil’s. They walked out of Scarlet Avenue, ignoring Cecil’s overturned bike, heading back to the radio station.

“Happy New Year’s Eve,” Cecil said back to Carlos.

Carlos just squeezed his hand and wiped the blood off his forehead with his sleeve.


End file.
